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| Bush and Bush Senior Administration lies exposed ... |
Erewhon |
04/12/06 |
Trailers Of Mass Destruction
Secretary of State Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said,
"Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons....They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on, But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them."
WP, "Bush: 'We Found' Banned Weapons. President Cites Trailers in Iraq as Proof, " May 31, 2003
At the time of this statement, no such weapons were found, and no such weapons have been found to this day. On this point as well as the use of the captured trailers as biolabs, the WP said this in the above article:
"U.S. authorities have to date made no claim of a confirmed finding of an actual nuclear, biological or chemical weapon. In the interview, Bush said weapons had been found, but in elaborating, he mentioned only the trailers, which the CIA has concluded were likely used for production of biological weapons."
There was no statement of fact, there was no smoking gun. The CIA's finding was advanced as an opinion based on its own particular process of elimination, and it was immediately challenged by both U.S. and U.K. intelligence analysts who had seen the trailers.
Politex, 08.09.03
Now comes this,
"Engineering experts from the Defense Intelligence Agency have come to believe that the most likely use for two mysterious trailers found in Iraq was to produce hydrogen for weather balloons rather than to make biological weapons, government officials say".
The classified findings by a majority of the engineering experts differ from the view put forward in a white paper made public on May 28 by the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which said that the trailers were ["likely used"] for making biological weapons....
The State Department's intelligence branch, which was not invited to take part in the initial review, disputed the findings in a memorandum on June 2. The fact that American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence were disputing the claims included in the C.I.A. white paper was first reported in June, along with the analysts' concern that the evaluation of the mobile units had been marred by a rush to judgment.
NYT, 08.09.03
"I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at a hearing of the Senate's appropriations subcommittee on defense, May 14, 2003
Perhaps Rummy does not know that Cheney is in the administration?
"We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
Vice President Dick Cheney on NBC's Meet the Press, March 16, 2003
Politex writes:
Bush lies So often and in so many different ways that I've never had the patience to keep a list of them. However, when I write something and include the generalization that Bush lies, some readers will write in and say, "Oh, yeh? What did he lie about? I don't believe it."
What follows, then, is an informal listing of just some of the lies he typically tells, starting from 2/01. Now, of course, we all know that Gore lies, Lott lies, Cheney lies, etc. But the difference between those liars and Bush is the President tells us that he is telling the truth when he is lying.
Hence, he will tell us what he is going to do, like get his proposed tax cut from the surplus, then try to get his proposed tax cut from military and medicare funds, instead. Or, once he has actually begun a program, tell us lies about how or why the program has begun. Or tell a closed-door Dem meeting something and then swear up and down the next day that he didn't say it. Or saying, "Yes, Mam" and meaning "No, Mam." Or having a spinner say the opposite the next day. Or, or...you get the idea.
Some Bush backers claim he's not a liar, he's just not very bright and doesn't remember things very well. That may be true, but we're sure Bush would not allow such an excuse in his "responsibility era." We're sure Bush would agree that if he's that dumb, he shouldn't be President.
Other Bush backers claim that some of his lies are "technically correct" or "tailored to fit the audience," or some such circumlocution. What they're talking about are lies of omission rather than lies of commission. In lies of omission it's what they imply, not what they say.
For example, the other evening Bush told Congress and the American people that he was putting a "lock box" on Social Security. Now, it's very clear that Bush wanted us to feel secure in the belief that he was protecting all of our Social Security funds for the future. No question, right? Yet, the very next day when his budget book was released, we learned that Bush told a lie of omission.
What he didn't tell Congress and the American people is that he would later take from $.6 to $1 trillion out of that "lock box" to cover his tax cuts. No doubt, Bush lied. He wanted folks to believe something that he knew was not true.
Of course, politicians do this all the time. It's second nature. In sum, the thing that really bothers us about Bush's lies is that he is also a hypocrite and pretends he's above lying. As a liar, he reinforces our assumptions about politicians. As a hypocrite, he reinforces our assumptions about his character.
Condoleeza Rice - 10 Minutes, Three Lies, And No Apology!
Condi Rice, Bush's National Security Adviser, appeared on 60 Minutes Sunday evening, but, unlike Bush anti-terrorism adviser Dick Clarke at the 9/11 Probe, she did not swear on the Bible that what she would say would be the truth. While Clarke on 60 Minutes last Sunday allowed himself to be probed and turned inside and out for nearly the entire program, the edited tape of the Rice interview with Ed Bradley lasted around 10 minutes, and she said nothing new.
The short episode came across as political spin to control the bleeding, and nothing more.
Rice's Lie #1 (transcript)
DICK CLARKE (video):
I said 'Mr. President, we've done this before. We - we've been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind, there's no connection.' He came back at me and said, 'Iraq, Saddam - find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean, that we should come back with that answer....
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
I - I have never seen the president say an - anything to an - people in an intimidating way, to try to get a particular answer out of them. I know this president very well. And the president doesn't talk to his staff in an intimidating way to ask them to produce information - that is false.
OUR RESPONSE:
Clarke and two others were in the room with Bush. The others have gone on record as agreeing with Clarke's description of the meeting. Condi was not present.
Rice's Lie #2 (transcript)
VOICE OVER:
All week long, the White House said it had no recollection that the September 12 meeting ever took place, and that it had no record that President Bush was even in the situation room that day. But two days ago, they changed their story, saying the meeting did happen.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
"None of us recall the specific - conversation....
OUR RESPONSE:
Actually, two lies here. First, the White House said the meeting didn't happen, then they changed their story. Second, Condi misleads Bradley by saying "us" did not recall the specific conversation. Of course "us" didn't since it has already been established that "us" was not in the room at the time of the conversation.
Rice's Lie #3 (transcript)
ED BRADLEY:
Clarke has alleged that the Bush administration underestimated the threat from - from al Qaeda, didn't act as if terrorism was an imminent and urgent problem. Was it?
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
Of course it was an urgent - problem....
ED BRADLEY: :
But even the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Hugh Shelton, has said that the Bush administration pushed terrorism, and I'm quoting here, "farther to the back burner."
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
I just don't agree....
ED BRADLEY:
After 9/11, Bob Woodward wrote a book in which he had incredible access and interviewed the president of the United States. He quotes President Bush as saying that he didn't feel a sense of urgency about Osama bin Laden. Woodward wrote that bin Laden was not the president's focus or that of his nationally security team. You're saying that the administration says fighting terrorism and al-Qaeda has been a top priority since the beginning.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
I'm saying that the administration took seriously the threat - let's talk about what we did....
ED BRADLEY: :
You'd listed the things that you'd done. But here is the perception. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff at that time says you pushed it to the back burner. The former Secretary of the Treasury says it was not a priority. Mr. Clarke says it was not a priority. And at least, according to Bob Woodward, who talked with the president, he is saying that for the president, it wasn't urgent. He didn't have a sense of urgency about al Qaeda. That's the perception here.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
Ed, I don't know what a sense of urgency - any greater than the one that we had, would have caused us to do differently.
OUR RESPONSE:
It's clear that Bradley wants to discuss the Clarke charge that the Bush administration changed terrorism from the top priority to one of secondary concern, and Rice attepts to twist the question of giving terrorism "top priority" to taking terrorism "seriously," which are two different things.
Then Bush is quoted as saying terrorism was not "urgent." Rice ignores this documented quote and goes on to disagree with Bush. As such, she is attempting to mislead by changing the terms from "top priority" to "seriously," and to simply ignore the evidence presented that Bush disagrees with her.
As such, she is on auto-pilot as she lies, spinning the implicit scenario she wants Bradley to accept.
Finally, Bradley repeatedly gave Rice the program's forum to apologize for 9/11 to the millions of viewers watching the show, like Clarke did on the show last week and previously to that under oath in front of the 9/11 Panel, but she refused each time. (transcript)
--Jerry Politex, 03.29.04
Why The Public Believes Bush's Lies
"When interviewed by Tim Russert, Vice President Cheney asserted that Iraq was "the heart of the base" for the 9/11 terrorists and went on from there with a series of half-truths and outright deceptions about almost every topic broached, including his supposed lack of current "financial interest in Halliburton." Mr. Cheney, a master of the above-reproach dead pan, just kept going, effortlessly mowing right through any objections by the host.
The vice president was banking, as Dr. Dean did on "This Week," on a cultural environment in which fiction and nonfiction have become so scrambled "and can be so easily manipulated by politicians and show-biz impresarios alike"
That credibility itself has become a devalued, if not archaic, news value. This is why the big national mystery of the moment "why do almost 70 percent of Americans believe in Mr. Cheney's fictional insinuation that Saddam Hussein had some hand in 9/11?" is not so hard to crack.
As low as the administration's credibility may be, it is still trusted more than the media trying to correct the fictions the White House plants in the national consciousness." --Frank Rich, NMYT, 09.28.03
Are these lies or are they not lies?
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Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 04/12/06 7:16 pm:
Ronnie,
It's interesting how presenting facts is one of my "less worthy efforts."
It's telling how you consider Bush claiming Iraq had WMD's is a lie, but the same 12 year-old claim by the UN is "wind, smoke, and bluster."
It just shows that to you, it isn't what was said but who said it that determines whether it's a lie or not.
Whether or not you concede victory to me on this is irrelevent. I've presented the facts so my victory is already achieved.
Steve
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